The Pilgrim

The Pilgrim



Great journeys must  be imagined first

and so trenchant in their intent

to slake the deepest kind of thirst,

it grasps imaginers by the throat

and tells them bluntly:

only through travail and trial,

by purging fire

and hammer blows be smote

can their spirit be reforged

and history's child

be sired.


This ordeal can either temper

or destroy

according to its whim,

or perhaps the pilgrims’ strength within.

Courage can surmount faint hearts,

but how can faith presume

that having gambled all,

there is a way to save us in the end?


There are no roads upon the other side,

except the ones we make,

every step perhaps at stake

our lives,

every view through soldiers’ eyes.


And so we wile away our days

beside brooding familiarities

that will not speak to us for fear

that it is not the sun that brightens

all that we hold dear,

but the bonfire of our vanities;

that the deepening darkening shade it castes

is not shadow,

but decaying sanity.


We look for hopeful signs,

but at midnight,

the clock rings its hands and says

in anguished tones,

“Ladies and Gentlemen,

it’s time.”